US has killed 3800 civilians in Syria

Date of publication: 15 06 2017, 08:24

Beirut, Lebanon. With daily operations increasing, the American forces have been bombing Syria non-stop. As the number of strikes goes up, so too do the number of civilians being killed by the American airstrikes.

American airstrikes by the US led coalition have caused a “staggering” loss of civilian life in recent months around the Islamic State’s Syrian stronghold of Raqqa, a United Nations investigative body announced Wednesday. Paulo Sérgio Pinheiro, chairman of the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Syria, said Wednesday that coalition airstrikes have deepened the suffering in the city held by extremist fighters.

United Nations human rights and monitoring groups have warned for months of the rising human cost of the coalition’s air war in Syria and Iraq as IS forces stake out positions in densely populated civilian areas across what remains of the group’s self-proclaimed caliphate. The commission recorded 300 civilian deaths from coalition airstrikes in Raqqa province between March 1 and May 31, according to officials for the Commission of Inquiry on Syria.

“We note in particular that the intensification of airstrikes, which have paved the ground for an SDF advance in Raqqa, has resulted not only in staggering loss of civilian life, but has also led to 160,000 civilians fleeing their homes and becoming internally displaced,” Mr. Pinheiro told the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva. He referred to the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a U.S.-backed militia dominated by Syrian Kurds.

The US led coalition includes military personnel from dozens of countries. According to its latest report, at least 3800 civilians have been unintentionally killed by coalition airstrikes since June 2014 in Syria. The United States was not invited to “help” by the Assad government. Nor has the United States an actual declaration of war.